In recent years computers have come equipped with internal peripherals which previously had been added to the computers as add-on external devices. Such peripherals include the compact-disc read-only-memory (CD-ROM) player, which is one type of optical disc player and which permits a user of the computer to play CD-ROM discs, and frequently audio compact discs, while using the computer. Where once CD-ROM players were exclusively an external device coupled to a computer via a serial or other cable, today CD-ROM players are typically included as internal peripherals that come with the computer.
A disadvantage to the inclusion of peripherals such as CD-ROM players as internal devices to a computer is that there is limited space within a computer to house such devices. This is especially true in the case of laptop computers. A laptop computer user may wish to have at different times a floppy disk drive, one or more batteries, a CD-ROM player, as well as other peripherals, connected to the computer. Because the purpose underlying laptop computers is portable computing, having even one of these peripheral attached as an external device largely defeats this purpose. However, having a laptop computer with all such peripherals installed as internal devices at one time also defeats this purpose by making the computer too heavy and too large, assuming that the devices even can all be installed internally at the same time in the first place.
One solution has been to make the internal devices modular, so that they are removable from the computer. This solution works with desktop as well as laptop computers. Because a computer user typically only needs at any given time one or two of the large number of available peripherals, the user neatly slides only the peripherals currently needed into the computer. In the case of a laptop computer, this permits the computer to remain portable, but at the same time also remain flexible in the number of peripherals that can be used with the computer.
A disadvantage to this solution, however, is that the modular peripherals are typically not useful when removed from the computer. While a battery removed from such a computer may have a good use in that it can be charged for later insertion into the computer, other peripherals are not so useful when removed from the computer. This is especially the case with modular CD-ROM players.
Modular CD-ROM players for computers are flexible peripherals in that they frequently permit the playing of audio compact discs in addition to CD-ROM discs when inserted into a computer. However, if the player is removed from the computer, it is no longer able to play audio compact discs. Because of this, the computer user is forced to also carry a portable audio compact disc player to ensure that audio discs can always be played. Always bringing along a portable audio compact disc player, however, renders the audio capability of the CD-ROM player unnecessarily duplicative.
There is a need, therefore, for a modular CD-ROM player that can play audio compact discs when the player is removed from the computer. Such a modular CD-ROM player that is operable in a stand-alone audio mode would render unnecessary the need for the user to also carry a portable audio compact disc player. That is, there is a need for a modular CD-ROM player that ensures uninterrupted play of audio compact discs regardless of whether the player is inserted into or removed from a computer.